Buffet Republic, A Day of Binging, and The Dilemma

Together with the ‘explorer of food’ moniker, I thought of using the ‘glutton’ label for this particular eatscapade.

The setting: Buffet Republic

The plan: Since they’ve got a mega low priced opening promo for January, why not try ALL their buffets in one day. (*stars in my eyes just imagining what an epic post it was going to be with experiences for breakfast, lunch and snacktime)

Today’s post format: We’ll be doing stuff in threes.

The early bird, the eager beaver. =b

The Good:

Breakfast

• Overall, a good enough selection.
• Of which, I loved the bangus belly … dipped in vinegar. I don’t know what their mix was but Y-U-M! (“,)
• Race liked the lumpia and the omelette from the egg station most but he did get enough from the other chafing dishes, too.
• It was so amusing to see shantong soup, which I think is a pretty elaborate soup, in the buffet.
• Race loved the caffeine kick the overflowing coffee provided him.
• Well picked fruits.

First, the house rules. =)

Lunch

• The flavorful and comforting tinola.
• The ensaladang pipino. ^^,
• The pickled radish that went with the bangus (slices of head with belly and belly with tail in the chafing dishes, this time).
• Well chosen red eggs. Just the right gritty salty yolk. \m/

Merienda

• Juicy, sweet fresh fruits

A happy breakfaster. =D

The Bad:

The binging day started going downhill from lunch. But as it says in the good section for lunch above, it wasn’t all bad for me.

For Race and Jo, it was a different story.  They felt something was missing … A few more options, maybe?

The BREAKFAST selection. Pancake, fruits, bread with jam and marmalade, bangus belly, fried chicken, shantong soup, veggie salad, pancit, a viand like tocino, omelette, ham a la Christmas ham, lumpia, siomai and chicken feet.

I did get a sense of cutting corners in this meal.  It was mostly in the salad that was more tapioca than fruit.  They didn’t say it was fruit salad on the tag of the dish so no harm, no foul. =b

Bangus belly luxuriating in a zingy vinegar mix (“,)

The Ugly:

• Few selections of viands for lunch. It seemed like the buffet restaurant couldn’t strike a balance with providing enough choices and it being okay for us to pay P180.
• Bicol express – Where are you spice? Where are you creamy coconut milk taste?
• The flavorsome beverages we had at breakfast started lose taste as the day progressed … watered down iced tea, overbrewed coffee.
• Then this, the merienda, happened.

With Race and Jo feeling bummed about lunchtime at this buffet carinderia, I checked the resto’s Facebook page for clues as to what we could expect for our afternoon snack.  Wrong move on my part since the album of the merienda menu weeks before got my hopes up too high. Dinuguan and puto, menudo for snack time, yes way!

What’s for LUNCH? Chicken afritada, ensaladang cucumber, that tocino looking viand again, red eggs and tomatoes, fried milk fish and radish pickle, chop suey, tinola, Bicol express, and salad.

Then the only outstanding choice when we were there was the fresh watermelon and cantaloupe chunks. Aww, man. The lumpiang hubad was just okay with its mild tasting peanut sauce. The mami hung by a thread with its flavorful good broth but some forkfuls of clumpy/undercooked mami.

• Hard cassava on the two-ingredient ginataan dessert (ginataang kamoteng kahoy).
• With a party going on in one section of the dining area, there were lots of mouths to be fed but no backup stock of cooked siomai in the small steamer in the dining area.  So again, the next batches were undercooked. (cue my impatience, my version of “are we there yet?” *heehaha)
• Anemic spaghetti signifying want for tomato sauce/spag sauce
• Hypoglycemic kakanin.

Race and I put up with the last two though … because those are our faves.

X+1+1 lunch. ^^,

By this time, Jo already bowed out of the binging day food quest. How I envied her.

Afternoon snack buffet was where I had a huge dilemma. I don’t have the heart to put this food adventure in Food for Thought, think before you eat here – blog category because I did like the breakfast, as simple as it was. However, I couldn’t stomach (pun intended =)) ) marking it for good food because I didn’t think some selections were good, what with the scrimping on this and that going on.  (It saddened me so much that I didn’t feel taken care of, with corn starchy spag sauce and plain floured puto. *sniff sniff Surely, cheap and affordable are two different things.)

The MERIENDA menu – Fruits, mami, puto, lumpiang hubad, more mami, ginataang cassava, siomai, the fruits upclose, spaghetti.

Food: I’m going with percentages for this blogpost, guys.

• Race: 30% … feeling good about this food adventure.
• Me: 51% good (Eeek, it feels like being stuck between a rock and a hard place)
• Jo: Didn’t get anything else after one plate with three viands, definitely didn’t like the lunch.

Service:  Friendly, smiley staff.

Ambiance: 

Price:

• On promo, I guess it was okay. It’s still the lowest priced buffet I’ve ever come upon in this life. (Although these thoughts kept nagging at me: I could’ve gotten a wonderful meal at Kadis or Chia’s or Good Taste with what I spent here and I wouldn’t have cared it wasn’t buffet. Heck, for the value of the foods from these places, I could’ve bought enough to make something like a buffet.=D)
• Off promo: I’ve been told more dishes will be added to the line up once the regular prices are in effect (P200 for breakfast, P300 for lunch, and P200 for merienda).  Also, if they find a way to offer the best of both worlds and not sacrifice the food quality for quantity, that would be awesome.  (Back of my mind,wasn’t that the whole point to the promo? It’s an introductory price, pakitang gilas/showing off time to entice us to come and dine even at the regular price. Just because we’re paying less, doesn’t mean we should also get less value. )

Note: The kakanin. It’s missing from the Merienda Selection collage *hee

In spite of all this, there’s still light at the end of the tunnel. They just opened.  They have time to rethink their game plan of how to make themselves a true Baguio buffet restaurant to contend with.

How about it, afoodionados? Are you brave and daring enough to go on a food quest at Buffet Republic? Please do leave a comment at the end of this blog post of how your Buffet Republic food trip went, I sure would love to hear about it.  It might help me decide to take this resto out of limbo. =)

Dilemmas, dilemmas, dilemmas: Watching these kids eating merienda with gusto put me in more of a dilemma. Was it just me? Has my palate become too refined? Am I a food snob now? =S

(Before some of you might think of leaving a ranting anonymous comment on the blog for this indecisive post, let us please remember this blog’s disclaimer found on the “About” page and on the bottom section of the main page. *hihi)

The Buffet Republic dining area … before the lunch crowd came in. =)

Buffet Republic

2nd Floor Citylight Tower

Bonifacio corner Dagohoy Street (beside Center Mall)

Baguio City Philippines

424 8755

facebook.com/BuffetRepublic